About one in five people can wiggle their ears—while the rest watch in non-wiggly envy. But what makes this skill possible for some and impossible for others? Ear movement is controlled by the ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The muscles that enable modern humans to wiggle their ears likely had a more important job in our ...

A “useless” muscle that allows some people to wiggle their ears actually activates when we strain to hear something. Our ape ancestors lost the ability to pivot their ears when they diverged from ...

When people are trying hard to listen to something, the body seems to do its best to "prick up its ears," even though this ability was lost by our evolutionary ancestors millions of years ago. That's ...

Evolution has largely deprived us of our ability to swivel our ears, but those vestigial muscles still activate when we listen intently, according to new research. Reading time 3 minutes Tens of ...

The little muscles that enable people to wiggle their ears unconsciously flex when we're trying to pick one sound out of a din of noise, a new study finds. Think about how cats, dogs and certain ...

In almost every species, ear movement can be a clue that the animal is trying to pay close attention to something. When people are trying hard to listen to something, the body seems to do its best to ...